In Defense of
the Good Name of Metropolitan Vitaly--January 2002by Bishop Evtikhy

All throughout 2001, blows aimed at provoking an internal schism,
shook our Church Abroad. Anyone who knows the history of the Church
also knows that these are, alas, nothing new. From the very founding
of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, there have been
continuous attempts to destroy, or at least to weaken, the stronghold
of Russian Orthodoxy. And, of course, it is well known to everyone,
and especially to its enemies, that the most destructive weapon
wielded against the Church is the inculcation of schism and dissension
in its midst.

The treachery and baseness in the activities of the authors and
instigators of the most recent schism lies in their achieving two
goals: firstly, the schism itself, and secondly, the destruction
of the good name of Metropolitan Vitaly. When I became a bishop
of the Church Abroad in 1994, and began to be involved in its ecclesiastical
affairs, I was amazed by its very conformity to the law, which I
even mentioned to my fellow archpastors at the Council of Bishops
held at Lesna in 1994: Direct your attention to the fact that
the stones being hurled into our garden are being cast with a single
objective: they are aimed at Metropolitan Vitaly. It is natural
that the Council of Bishops, joining ranks around the Metropolitan,
has always striven to defend him. The very ardor of this defense
and the alarming signs of the extraordinary influence of the Metropolitans
secretary, L. D. Rosniansky, on him, of the inaccessible registering
of extensive real estate and considerable Church funds in the Metropolitans
personal name, resulted in a broad anti-Metropolitan
campaign. This prevented the members of the Council of Bishops from
unanimously putting an end to these serious violations of Church
order, which, alas, has not failed to produce their own evil fruit.

In the Sacred Scriptures it says that the children of wickedness
are wiser than the children of light. The instigators of the anti-Church
troubles carefully worked to locate the weak spot. When it was ascertained
that Metropolitan Vitaly is becoming progressively senile, is losing
the ability to analyze and properly assess events and documents,
the children of wickedness quite adeptly took advantage of this
situation. The former critics of Metropolitan Vitaly, who had assembled
compromising material against him and subjected him to venomous
criticism, smoothly transformed themselves into his defenders
and began to accuse the hierarchs, who had always defended the dignity
of the Metropolitan, of conspiracy and violence against him. The
closer the inevitable and natural departure of the ailing Metropolitan
into retirement, the more forcefully the lie was circulated than
they wanted to remove the Metropolitan for his steadfast position.
And when the Metropolitans illness developed further, when
he began to forget even those he had spoken with a short time before,
not to mention the topic of the conversation itself, a whole bacchanal
began. The enfeebled Metropolitan summoned by phone persons whom,
when he was in his right mind, he had considered enemies of the
Church, and with their help began to endorse documents
unacceptable from the point of view of Church order. These documents
contained deceitful fabrications, violations of the Church canons,
and contradicted well-known convictions Vladyka Metropolitan himself
had held for many years. His decisive announcement of his retirement
took place at the session of the Synod of Bishops in July of 2001.
At that time, the members of the Synod of Bishops asked the President
of the Synod how he could sign documents containing falsehood, documents
which contradict the very decisions of the Council and the Synod,
over which he himself had presided. To this Metropolitan Vitaly
indignantly replied that he had never done what no hierarch has
the right to doi.e., that he had never overturned a decision
of the Council and the Synod. The Metropolitan proclaimed what is
well-known to allthat the decisions of the Synod and Council
can be changed only by the Synod and the Council. However, documents
were placed before him which bore his signature and seal, and which
precisely contradicted his oral assertion of adherence to ecclesiastical
Truth. After two or three repetitions of his confession, which could
in nowise be reconciled with the documents which lay before him,
Metropolitan Vitaly fell silent for some considerable time, at the
end of which he stated decisively: In this situation I see
only one way outI will go into retirement, and he demanded
that these very words be entered into the minutes, which was done.
The composition of the Act of the First Hierarchs Retirement,
the convoking of an extraordinary Council of Bishops and the assignment
of the duties of temporary administrative government during the
pre-conciliar period to the First Deputy of the First Hierarch,
were most faithful and lawful actions, which the Synod of Bishops
had to take under the given circumstances.

The most persuasive, striking and, in my opinion, holy evidence
that Metropolitan Vitaly, in the depths of his soul, in undisturbed
consciousness, remained loyal to the consistent and irreproachable
path of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, was revealed
in his final appearance at the Council of Bishops in 2001, on the
third day of its work. Seated in the presidents chair, Metropolitan
Vitaly said that he congratulates the new First Hierarch, Metropolitan
Laurus, on his election, and considers him to be a truly worthy
successor. Later, he stated that he had come [to the session] to
transfer the fullness of the authority of First Hierarch to the
newly-elected. Let it not trouble you, continued Metropolitan
Vitaly, that I am not transferring documents or any material
symbol of the ecclesiastical authority of the First Hierarch, because
I am not transmitting authority symbolically, but spiritually, and
this is incomparably more significant and important than all documents
and symbols. In response to Metropolitan Laurus request
that he assist him in the governing of the Church, Metropolitan
Vitaly assured him that he would be happy if he could in any way
be of service to the new Metropolitan. To the other members of the
Council of Bishops Metropolitan Vitaly said that he was confident
of the loyalty of all the hierarchs present and wished that they
would remain so thenceforward. Of his own departure into retirement,
Metropolitan Vitaly said that he harbored not the least resentment,
since he was truly in need of rest, being already far advanced in
age. This is the Metropolitan Vitalyconciliatory and faithful
to the royal path of our Church Abroadwho must remain in our
hearts.

All the other uncanonical actions and signatures of the Metropolitan
on absurd documents we must simply ascribe to his senility
and to the aggressive influence of the ill-intentioned clique which
holds the Metropolitan in thrall. Denying Metropolitan Vitalys
illness, they care only for their own plans and their own gain,
using the elder Metropolitan as a living shield for their own blatantly
iniquitous actions. Denying the indisputable fact of his illness,
the supposed defenders of the Metropolitan by this very denial indirectly
level against him terrible accusations of slander, duplicity, deliberate
violation of the canons and intentional deviation from that participation
in the liturgical life of the Church which is obligatory for all
healthy clergymen. Those who are truly of one mind with him, the
comrades-in-arms in his Church ministry, know that a healthy Metropolitan
could not simultaneously sign contradictory documentshe was
never duplicitous, nor could he ever consent to the activities of
a vicar bishop who arbitrarily establishes his own diocese, since
he knows that this falls only within the competence of the Council;
nor could he include false assertions in his epistles, since he
was never a liar; nor could he agree to the hierarchal consecration
of candidates he himself had early disqualifiedArchimandrites
Sergius and Bartholemew. What filth they have besmirched the Metropolitan
with by these supposed consecrations! Could a healthy-minded Metropolitan
Vitaly ever have agreed that the former vicar bishop Varnava, who
had been deposed from his rank and did not participate in the celebration
of the Holy Eucharist at the service, perform a consecration?! Or
would they have us believe that Metropolitan Vitaly, who over the
past three years has not celebrated a single Liturgy due to illness,
had in fact been avoiding the most important duty of each sacred
minister, feigning illness and consciously trampling upon the canonical
rules?! Would it not also be senseless for a healthy Metropolitan
Vitaly to consort with the defrocked Valentin (Rusantsov) of Suzdal,
who just happened to be in the car of Archpriest Vladimir
Shishkoff, the most active participant in the abduction of the ailing
Metropolitan Vitaly from his residence at Synod? I also call attention
to the fact that the organizers of this abduction, summoning the
police at that moment, alleged that Metropolitan Vitaly was not
simply ill, but was possibly even comatose.

It is astonishing that people so gullibly take as the basis of their
own support for these schismatic actions disinformation blatant
in its discrepancy and the crudely ignorant activity of the ill-intentioned
clique surrounding the elderly Metropolitan. Now, by common assent,
as for more persuasive agitation against the Council of Bishops,
they are using published photographs of the incident of the forcible
abduction of Metropolitan Vitaly from his notorious clique to Synod,
which was undertaken by Bishop Michael. Although logically one may
acknowledge as correct Bishop Michaels desire to extricate
Metropolitan Vitaly from the clique which is discrediting his name,
and thus to halt the profiteering in the name of the Diasporas
elder on the part of evil-doers, yet we must make an assessment
not according to logic, but according to the Church. The Churchs
assessment does not speak against, but in favor of the Council of
Bishops. The matter lies in the fact that the opinion of Metropolitan
Laurus against moving Metropolitan Vitaly anywhere at all, especially
against the ailing will of the latter, was unanimously supported
at the Council of Bishops. The events captured on film, and the
widespread reaction to them, prove precisely that Metropolitan Laurus
and the Council of Bishops which supported him, where correct in
their precautionary decision not to apply any coercion to the retired
Metropolitan Vitaly; and Bishop Michael was not correct in his (possibly)
noble, ardent impulse, which was contrary to the decision adopted
by the Council.

Is it really not obvious to the individuals who support the schism
that those who are acting under the cover of the name of Metropolitan
Vitaly have one thing in common: enmity toward the Council of Bishops
and are alike in that they never before distinguished themselves
in the arena of the edification of the Church?! And their first
steps in the unanimous Church schism already bear witness
to how each is seeking his own. The first announcement of the formation
of a new Church organization under the name The Russian Orthodox
Church in Exile was dictated by those who needed their own
legal registration, their own bank accounts, their own property,
their own by-laws; but, as is well known, it is impossible to register
under one name two organizations which exist parallel to one another.
At the same time, others lost their right to their former property
at the time of the new registration. Some needed a connection with
the Greek Metropolitan Kiprianos, the Romanian Metropolitan Vlasie
and the Bulgarian Bishop Photii, who are in eucharistic communion
with our Church, probably so as to impart some sort of serious appearance
to their own outrageous acts. To others, on the other hand, such
a connection would have hindered ties with the numerous Old Calendar
groups.

In 1996 or 97, Vycheslav Polosin, a former priest of the Moscow
Patriarchate, who was then head of the State Duma of the Russian
Federations committee governing religious and social organizations,
and who later publicly converted to Islam, when I attended a reception
at which he was present, insistently proposed that the Russian Orthodox
Church Outside of Russia remain itself the Church in Exile.
For some reason he did not like the name Church Abroad.
It is amazing where, when and in whose midst he has discovered those
who share his ideas! And for every one of their wishes and gains
the schismatics are writing their decrees and mandates
and giving them to Metropolitan Vitaly to sign, thereby obscuring
his truly great merits before the Church and transforming his well-deserved
rest into a nightmare.

Dear brothers and sisters, do not cease your prayers for the ailing
Metropolitan Vitaly, who has gone into retirement. Reject the attempts
of the rebels who by their abuses of the sickness and infirmity
of the elder are besmirching his good name. Their actions will be
unmasked and will disappear like the works of the Joannite sectarians,
who speculated on the holy name of the righteous John of Kronstadt.
Even if Vladyka Vitaly does not manage to extricate himself from
the clutches of the schismatics before his death, his name will
remain bright and good in the history of the Church of Christ.
30 November/13 December 2001
Holy Apostle Andrew the First-called